Make Your Peace
by vapourtrailreads
Summary: Akos and Ara make their peace. Major spoilers for The Fates Divide.


A/N:

w h a t t h e h e c k i a c t u a l l y f i n i s h e d t h i s o m g

Major spoilers for The Fates Divide.

**Make Your Peace**

"You should go talk to Ara sometime," Cyra said one evening, as they stood side by side at the wooden brewing counter, preparing the ingredients for Cyra's nightly mixture. "Make your peace."

Akos clenched his knife in his hand, ignoring the dropping feeling in his gut as he sliced down the middle of the hushflower petals.

"Talk to who?" he muttered, pretending that he hadn't heard.

"Don't pretend you didn't hear," Cyra said, her mouth twisting as she fixed Akos with those dark eyes of hers. Dark as space, he always liked to say. They reflected his pale face, his sharp cheekbones, still slightly pronounced from his imprisonment in Noavek manor under Lazmet's reign. He would never acknowledge that man as his father, even if he had given him life. He couldn't, not when he'd made him do that thing to Jorek—

"I said you should go and talk to Ara Kuzar," Cyra went on. "You know losing Jorek must have been hard for her. I'm not saying it wasn't hard for _you,_" she said as Akos gave her a look, "but you two deserve closure."

"Akos," she said, putting down her knife and placing her hand on his fist, "bear with the lame analogy that doesn't apply to you, but you can't hide from the Armored One in the room forever. It's best to just… get it over and done with." Cyra gave him a meaningful look, the one that told Akos that she knew what he was thinking.

Akos sighed. He knew she was right, but—

The memory of Jorek's solemn expression as he pressed his mother's ring into Akos's palm pushed any lingering thoughts of verbal evasion from his mind. "Okay," he said heavily, and Cyra's hand left his, the black currentshadows resurfacing as she went back to the hushflower petals. He watched as she ran the tip of the blade down the vein, unfurling the petals one by one, while the image of Ara smiling at him from across the table in Voa remained burning in his mind.

_XXXXXXXX_

The next day, he told Cyra his plan, who gave him an appraising look and a few words of encouragement, before kissing her goodbye and leaving for the town centre. According to the clock at the drink stall he was queuing at, it was ten in the morning, but as usual, the darkened sky of Ogra betrayed no sign of this. He paid for his drink, and taking a deep breath, started on the road to Ara Kuzar's house.

He knew Ara's house was somewhere near the edge of town, just as it had been in Voa, but he only had a rough idea of where it sat in the Shotet settlement here. He leaned against the wall, watching the crowd walk past, going about their business.

"Lost?"

Akos raised his head and caught sight of a familiar white-blonde woman standing in front of him.

"Yeah," he mumbled, dragging his hand through his hair as Yma Zetsyvis looked him up and down with a familiar refined sadism. "I was just going to see Ara Kuzar, but…"

Yma's gaze softened, which was weird since he didn't remember it being harsh in the first place. "I know where it is. I can show you if you want." She smirked a little when Akos relaxed visibly and stuttered his thanks. Yma jerked her head, and they walked off in the direction she'd indicated.

Akos felt acutely aware of his simple clothes, which, while decent enough, looked like rags compared to Yma's swirling teal dress. Old habits died hard, he guessed, remembering the various outfits Yma had worn when she came to visit him in his cell in Noavek manor. He finished his drink and deposited the empty container in a bin.

They walked in what passed for a companionable silence before Yma spoke.

"So tell me," she said. "Why are you going to Ara Kuzar's house when you know that it was her only son that you sacrificed to Lazmet?"

Akos remained silent.

"Ah." Yma smiled, catlike. "You seek forgiveness." She stopped walking.

Akos looked back at her. She jerked her head at the house she was standing next to. "Let me give you a piece of advice. Shotet have long memories, and they are not forgiving. But for your sake, I hope you succeed."

Perhaps it was because she had been there with him when he gave himself up to Lazmet, or maybe it was because she was the one who'd convinced him of the need to betray Jorek, to give him up for the greater good. Akos couldn't help but feel a sort of kinship towards this woman with her fancy dresses and hard eyes, who for so long had done what she had to just to keep breathing.

"Thank you," he said.

Yma jerked her head again, this time to look away from Akos. "If you're not as confident of the underlying power of your charm as you appear, I can go in with you."

He felt his heart warm at the insult veiling her kindness. "I believe in the power of my charm. But thank you anyway."

Yma nodded once at him and left. Akos turned and, after a moment, knocked thrice on Ara Kuzar's door.

_XXXXXXXX_

She opened the door, looked him up and down, and walked further into the house, leaving the door open. Akos took it as a sign of passage granted, and followed her, closing the door behind him.

Ara did not look at him as she walked past the kitchen table.

"Sit," she said.

Akos sat. Memories of a dining table, of Lazmet Noavek's mouth moving as he tried—and failed—to condition him ran through his mind. He watched Ara as she came to a stop by the window. Between her fingers he caught the dull glint of old metal. A razor.

"He never used it." Ara's eyes were blank, unfeeling. She could have cut herself and she probably wouldn't have noticed. It sent a thrill of unease through Akos's body. "He said that he liked the beard. That it made him feel older. More respected."

Akos said nothing.

"He was my son," Ara said.

"He was my friend," Akos replied.

"And still you gave him up to Lazmet in the end." There was an edge to her voice that Akos had never heard before. "So tell me, _Noavek_—" Akos flinched at the name. "Tell me why you deserve my forgiveness. Why you even want it to begin with. Noaveks do not seek the pardon of those beneath them."

"I am not a Noavek."

Her eyes glinted. "Then what are you?"

Akos bowed his head.

"I'm sorry."

The room emptied of all sound, save the heaving of Ara's breaths.

"I am _sorry_," Akos repeated, feeling his breathing stutter. "I am sorry that I was born to Lazmet, sorry that my mother and Cyra's mother felt the need to swap us. I am sorry that things had to turn out this way, I am sorry that I had to give Jorek up just for that _slight_ chance to end him, to end all of it, and I am sorry that you will not forgive me, that you _can't_. But I don't—I don't blame you for hating me because of what I've done," he said, lifting a hand to wipe tears away. He didn't know when he'd started crying, but he was, and now his voice was scratchy in his throat when he spoke. "Not when I know that it's my fault."

He squeezed his eyes shut, the rustling of cloth registering in his ears before thin, tentative fingers brushed his cheek.

Akos's eyes flew open, and he glanced up at Ara's tear-streaked face. The crow's feet bracketing her eyes darkened as she blinked.

"Stop," she said, her own voice shaking. "_Stop_."

Akos turned his face downward, pressing his sleeve over his eyes. When he lowered his arm, Ara was seated opposite him, hands knitted together in her lap. On the smooth wooden table between them was a basket of freshly baked—

"I think I offered you one of those after I told you he was my father," Akos said.

"You remember?"

A jar of horrors swam across his vision. "I remember it all."

Silently, Ara reached over and picked up a roll.

"Here." She shook it in front of his nose; he stared down at it, puzzled. "It will be lunch soon."

Realisation and hope mingled in his chest. Akos extended a hand carefully, gripping the roll with the tips of his fingers, and Ara's face finally—_finally_—broke into a smile.

It was small, and he doubted that anyone had seen it in a long time, but he was glad to see it again.

"Thank you," he said, and Ara subsided, settling back into her chair and brushing wisps of grey out of her face. Akos bit into the roll, the taste of bread a welcome sensation on his tongue.

In the periphery of his vision, he saw Ara take another roll and bite into it. He wondered if she was remembering another time, as he was, when they were seated around a table much like this one, on a planet that they had once called home, talking and being with someone that they had, and still, cared for.

"He wasn't my only son, you know," Ara said, eyes fixed on the table as she nibbled at the roll.

At that, Akos attacked his roll with a new fervour, hoping she wouldn't see the tears that had once again sprung to his eyes, but for a very different reason from before.


End file.
